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Exchange 2013 RTM CU1 – Changes – Part 1

I began writing this article to concentrate on the changes made in just OWA. Then I started to look at the EAC and noticed changes there as well. So this article the first in a series of posts over the next week or so that will cover changes that are in the new Exchange 2013 CU1 release. The goal is to show the changes/improvements that Microsoft as made from RTM to CU1. I am also of the opinion that Tony Redmond nailed it on the head with this article where he declares that CU1 is what RTM should have been.
From the EHLO (Exchange Team) blog:

Update is now a full install and not just a patch like the Rollup Updates from Exchange 2010.

If you do not have Exchange 2013 RTM installed, CU1 will create a new Offline Address Book) OAB. Clients relying on this will perform a full download of the new OAB.

Need both roles in order to manage your Exchange 2013 environment. These roles do not need to be on the same server.

Mailbox sizes ‘increase’ in Exchange 2013 from previous versions of Exchange. This has to do with some calculation changes that Microsoft has made in the calculation of the true space usage by a mailbox.

Address Book Policy Routing Agent has been added with CU1.

Groups can manage groups. Yes! Finally. A feature that had been removed is now back. Groups make management so much easier and prevents issues you might have when a group manager has been removed and you have to make each change individually instead of with one change.

Public folders are now visible in OWA. This will be limited to Exchange 2013 Public Folders.

As with any Microsoft release there are changes/modifications that are not as well documented or ‘featured’. Things that affect the user experience are noted if they are major (i.e. Public folders availability in OWA 2013 CU1), but minor changes are not.

In the next secion of the article, Here are some of the changes I’ve seen in my use of the new Exchange 2013 CU1 (** changes are from RTM to CU1). I am not pretending that this is a full and completed list of all the changes that were made by Microsoft. This is simply a list of the changes I’ve noticed since the release came out last week. All tests were completed with Internet Explorer 10 (IE10).

Change 1
In the upper right hand corner of OWA once you log in, clicking on the gear button brings up a differently ordered menu listing in CU1 then RTM.

Exchange 2013 RTM

Exchange 2013 RTM CU1

Change 2
A little deeper into OWA we find that the contacts page has been changes as well. To get here you need to click on People button in the upper right hand corner of OWA. Here are the changes made here as well:

Exchange 2013 RTM

Exchange 2013 RTM CU1

Seems to be just a different way to display the same information.

Change 3
Wipe Device looks like it was removed from the Mobile Devices menu in OWA. This might simply be because I have no mobile devices connected to this account yet. I will update this article once I get a device hooked up to the mailbox on my Exchange 2013 CU1 server.

Exchange 2013 RTMExchange 2013 RTM CU1

Change 4
Check Names functionality has been added to new messages in OWA. This is very useful as it provides a quicker way to verify your recipient list is correct.

Exchange 2013 RTM

Exchange 2013 RTM CU1

Change 5
The ability to add a room to a new meeting request was added to the first screen instead of having to go to the Scheduling Assistant in the RTM version of OWA.

Exchange 2013 RTM

Exchange 2013 RTM CU1

Change 6

When creating a new appointment in OWA 2013, CU1 now allow a user to choose which calendar to place the new appointment in. If you manage multiple calenders from OWA, this will simplify this task.

Exchange 2013 RTM

Exchange 2013 RTM CU1

Change 7
A nice feature added with CU1 is the revealing of which Distribution Lists that you own. This allows you to see which ones you managed from the OWA interface.

Exchange 2013 RTM

Exchange 2013 RTM CU1

Change 8
A new Calendar Troubleshooter has been added to OWA with the release of CU 1. With this feature a user could potentially track down any logs relating to a particular calendar item they are having an issue with.

Exchange 2013 RTM
This feature does not exists at all.Exchange 2013 RTM CU1

Change 9
Default font for OWA went from a size 10 Tahoma to a size 12 Calibri. I would imagine this is to mimic the default settings for Office.

Exchange 2013 RTM

Exchange 2013 RTM CU1

Cosmetic Changes
In going from RTM to CU1 for Exchange 2013, Microsoft also made some cosmetic changes in the hopes of giving OWA a more polished look. I wish these had been added to RTM and not CU1 as they seemed to have been an after thought for the RTM version of 2013.

Exchange 2013 RTM

Exchange 2013 RTM

Exchange 2013 RTM CU1

Exchange 2013 RTM CU1

Summary

While this is not meant to be a comprehensive list, I hope that by this post alone you can see the many changes that Microsoft has made to polishing up their Exchange 2013 product.